Professor Muller and a real Mahatma:

Interestingly you will still find Max Muller's translations of
Sanskrit works even though they were produced over a hundred
years ago.
I recall reading his book some years ago entitled "Ramakrishna,
HIs Life And Sayings" and it was a very fair piece and perhaps
the first of its kind to be written on Ramakrishna.
Swami Abhedananda in his "Ramakrishna Kathamrita and
Ramakrishna" mentions an article Max Muller wrote in 1896 for
the August number of the "Nineteenth Century" entitled "A Real
Mahatman"... Abhedananda writes:
"In this celebrated article , which was for some time the subject
of most severe criticism both in England and India among many
of the Christian missionaries and the Theosophists, the noted
Professor showed the difference between the imaginary
Mahatmas of the Theosophists and the real Mahataman or the
great soul of India who had reached God consciousness and
had manifested Divinity in all the actions of his daily life." - p. 18
Some of you may be aware that i am sympathetic to this view,
that we as theosophists should have more deference for real
saints and sages such as Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi
rather than the quasi spiritualist entities of the early theosophical
movement.
I do however respect the tradition and legend of the
Mahasiddhas, otherwise known as the eighty four adepts which
is held by both Tantric Buddhists and Hindus. Somehow it
seems early theosophists attempted to synthesize the
Rosicrucian legends with the Siddha traditions and serve their
own brew to gullible westerners.
- Art
Below I attach a review by H.H. Anniah Gowda of Max Muller's My
Autobiography and Nirad C. Chaudhuri's Scholar Extraordinary:
The Life of Prof.the Rt.Hon. Friedrich Max Muller
Reviewed by H.H. Anniah Gowda
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Quotable Quote:"WE MUST LEARN TO SEE A MEANING IN
EVERYTHING"- Friedrich Max Muller in a letter to his son.
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Muller had the artist's insight to pierce through the Hindu
scriptures and discover their pure poetic essence. He put the
study of the origins of language, thought, religion, philosophy
and law or other human creations of the Vedic period on the
same level as the literatures of Greece, Rome and Germany. His
knowledge of classical literature was richly enhanced by his
Indian acquaintances and correspondents: Dwarkanath Tagore,
R.R. Deb, Devendranath Tagore, Keshab Chander Sen and a
host of other scholars and religious reformers. With some of
them his friendship was deep and abiding.
Strangely enough, Chaudhuri adds his own favourable
comments to Muller's opinion of the Indians who reciprocated
his feeling in abundant measure. Georgina Muller in her
biography gives a letter from a middle-class Hindu in Madras
who wrote to him on hearing that Muller was ill. His reactions
were warm and heartfelt:
"Sunday was the mail day, on which English mail letters are
delivered at Madras...The postman gave me a card...in which the
following lines were written: `Professor Max Muller is seriously ill
and not able to attend to any letter.' When I read these lines tears
trickled down my cheeks unconsciously. When I showed the
card to my friends who spent the last days of their lives like mine
in reading the Bhagavad Gita... They decided to have special
service performed to God Sri Parthasarathy Swamy...in your
name for complete recovery. The temple priest raised many
objections to have our object accomplished, and the chief one of
his objections was that he can't offer prayers and enchant
manthrams to god in the name of one who is not a Hindu by
birth...But, when one of our friends promised to pay ample
remuneration for the purpose, he acceded to our request."
Muller and Georgina come sympathetically alive in the pages of
Chaudhuri's book. His portrait is fully evoked: Muller possessed
a gift for languages and for music, he had an artistic
temperament, the soul of a great lover, and of an affectionate
father. He had a life-long involvement with God. Chaudhuri takes
note of his hero's less scholarly occupations at Oxford. The
death of his daughter Mary in 1876 brought about the virtual end
of his intellectual life. The hero suddenly withdraws and enters
into telepathic communication with his dead daughter. He keeps
a journal addressed to her, to keep her presence alive. Like
Georgina's parents, Muller was unwilling to give permission to
his second daughter to marry an impecunions don, though he
had been one himself. Later, he relented, but continued to pour
moral precepts on her. The unhappy daughter died in childbirth.
The journal ends with the telegram announcing the death of his
second daughter pasted in. The apostle of Aryan idealism was
beaten into submission by a cruel fate. His karma proved too
strong to bear, and he wrote to his son: "We must learn to see a
meaning in everything, we must believe that as it was, it was
right."
Chaudhuri set out to tell a story of the rise, glory and decline of
one whose devotion of Vedic literature was unparalleled. The
scholar's existence is evoked in fluent prose with a sharp eye for
the history of India and of Europe. Only occasionally does
Chaudhuri yield to the temptation of overwriting. He has
summarized a mass of facts and arguments with great skill, and
written about them with appropriate lucidity. The biographer
remains throughout in a mood of respectful admiration. Scholar
Extraordinary is a coherent and colourful tapestry: a grateful
literary garland from India.
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H.H.Anniah Gowda was a Reader in English at the University of
Mysore, Editor of The Literary Half-Yearly, author of a Kannada
version of George Orwell's Animal Farm ( under the title Mruga
Prabhutva and of The Revival of English Poetic Drama
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